Pew poll shocka: Trust in media tends to vary by party

posted at 9:57 pm on August 9, 2007 by Allahpundit

Presented mostly without comment. The red markings I’ve added tell most of the story anyway. There’s more at Pew, especially as regards Fox News viewers versus fans of other cable networks. The Foxies tend to be a little more, er, suspicious.

For the first one, note that we’re looking at a small fall off from 1985 until 1992, right around the time conservative talk radio started to take off. Then — boom. The sharp drop for network news over the last two years is, I’m guessing, due to perceptions about Iraq reporting:

More Iraq effects. Note the fleeting parity in 1999, after the impeachment fiasco, and the startling fact that fewer Democrats see the press as too critical of America now than they did in 1985. Is that left-wing disgruntlement over Iraq coverage before the war or a side effect of the left shifting further left?

The Beauchamp saga explained? Note where independents come down on this one:

And finally, Pew provides the highlighting for the trends here. Sad to say, but except for the Iraq effects during the last two years, the Dems are actually more evenhanded on this subject than we are:

Blowback

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Sad to say, but except for the Iraq effects during the last two years, the Dems are actually more evenhanded on this subject than we are.

That’s debatable. Dems clearly love press criticism of any GOP Pres, and not so much of Clinton. Repubs thought press criticism was good during the Reagan-GHWB-Clinton years. It has dropped off since 2001, which may have less to do with W as POTUS than the post-9/11 environment. It’s possible that the GOP respondents are thinking of the MSM going after W on stuff like the terrorist surveillance program, generally running down the war effort, trying to manufacture Watergate out of the US attny firings, etc.

56% of Republicans have a favorable opinion of the network news?! 41% have a favorable opinion of National newspapers?! NFW.

TheBigOldDog on August 9, 2007 at 10:13 PM

Ditto, Dog. There is a Rank Smell wafting around this poll.

I did polling the the Prez level in 1972 and 1976 ( I AM that old ). Much–very much, as in a great deal–depends on the exact wording and tone of the question.

Yes, I said tone. People are phoned at random, and asked–verbally, by an actual person–unanticipated questions by strangers. Out of a combo of courtesty and “let’s get this over with ASAP”, people will tell the questioner what they think he wants to hear, and they will rarely admit that they don’t know what they don’t know.

For the above reasons, ALL polls on abortion are crap; ALL polls on race are crap ( the list of crap polls is not a short one )